Gmail can now view PowerPoint Presentations

Google has rolled out an integrated PowerPoint viewer for Gmail which enables you to view PowerPoint presentations as slideshows in your browser, without any dependency on PowerPoint or any third party app.

When you open an email which contains a PowerPoint Presentation (with .ppt extension), you’ll notice a new option “View as slideshow” along with other options like “View as HTML” and “Download” links. The down side is that the built-in viewer doesn’t support sound effects and transitions, you’ll have to manually move through slides using the keyboard or the on-screen arrow keys. Sadly, it’s also a bit handicapped because it fails to recognize the new Microsoft Office 2007 presentation format (PPTX filetype) as a PowerPoint file.

Although Google’s PowerPoint Viewer needs some polishing to be done, it’s still a reason to worry for Microsoft because most users, who purchase Microsoft’s Office Suite, use it to open the documents they receive and rarely to create new ones. Google’s Presentation App, which not just lets you to view, but also edit and create new presentations, is arriving this summer. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!

source:techbuzz